Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a ligneous decorative design part, and a method of producing the same, and more particularly to a ligneous decorative design part exhibiting a novel handsome appearance, and a method which permits advantageous production of the ligneous decorative design part.
Description of Related Art
There have been widely used formed ligneous bodies formed from various kinds of lumber (timber) and bamboo, as components of architectural floor panels, furniture and fittings. In the field of automotive vehicles, for example, there has been a growing demand for interior parts having a texture or appearance of wood, keeping pace with a recently increased desire for enhancement of quality of the vehicles. To meet this growing demand, formed ligneous bodies have been increasingly utilized as outer panels and surface panels of the interior parts of the automotive vehicles. Further, recent diversity of users' desires or demands relating to the decorative design requires ligneous decorative design parts having high degrees of originality and excellence in design.
Under the circumstances described above, JP-A-2013-75449 discloses a translucent decorative member which is a laminar body including a sliced veneer layer, a veiling layer and a decorative layer. The sliced veneer layer is formed from a translucent thin ligneous sheet which has a desired woody grain, and which is obtained by a WPC (Wood Plastic Combination) process in which the ligneous sheet is impregnated with a resin material, and the veiling layer has a predetermined degree of translucency, while the decorative layer also has translucency and a woody grain pattern having a desired woody grain or a desired tone of color.
In the translucent decorative member described above, the WPC process permits the sliced veneer layer in the form of the thin ligneous sheet to have a sufficiently high degree of translucency, without a need of considerably reducing the thickness of the thin ligneous sheet, so that the woody grain pattern of the decorative layer can be clearly and definitely seen on the side of the front surface of the translucent decorative member, together with the woody grain on the surface of the thin ligneous sheet when the translucent decorative member is exposed to a light incident from the side of its back surface. Thus, the woody grain of the sliced veneer layer and the woody grain pattern of the decorative layer are observed in combination with each other, giving the translucent decorative member an enhanced natural appearance in terms of its sliced veneer. When the translucent decorative member is not exposed to the light incident from the side of its back surface, the veiling layer veils the woody grain pattern of the decorative layer, namely, prevents the woody grain pattern from being seen on the side of the front surface of the translucent decorative member, so that only the woody grain of the sliced veneer layer is observed on the side of the front surface, giving the translucent decorative member a ligneous appearance of the woody grain similar to that of an ordinary ligneous decorative member. As described above, the translucent decorative member has a considerably large difference between its appearances when it is exposed to the light and when it is not exposed to the light. This difference improves the excellence in design of the translucent decorative member.
However, the decorative design of the prior art decorative member is based on a conventionally used woody grain, and does not sufficiently satisfy the users' desires for enhanced originality in design. Further, this decorative member requires formation of the veiling layer for veiling the woody grain pattern of the decorative layer, and printing of the woody grain pattern on the decorative layer, giving rise to a potential drawback of an increased cost of manufacture of the decorative member.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent No. 4502848 and Japanese Patent No. 4849609 disclose a formed ligneous body produced by utilizing a so-called “flow molding” process, and a method of producing such a formed ligneous body. The formed ligneous body produced by utilizing the flow molding process described above has not only an advantage regarding the preservation of resources and environment, but also an advantage of presenting a genuine lumber feel. Further, the formed ligneous body produced by using a ligneous material the fiber cells of which are impregnated with a resin material has an advantage of high degrees of scratch-, water-, and weather-proof properties of its surface portion, even where the surface portion is not covered by a coating layer in the form of a transparent film.
However, the formed ligneous body produced by utilizing the flow molding process having the several advantages suffers from the following drawback. Namely, the flow of the entirety of the ligneous material within a forming cavity undesirably causes a high risk that the formed ligneous body has surface patterns or figures which are far different from, or deformed with respect to a natural woody grain, or aesthetically deteriorated. Thus, the technique to produce the formed ligneous body by utilizing the conventional flow molding process has extreme difficulty to obtain the ligneous decorative design part which can satisfy the users' desires or demands for enhanced originality and excellence in its design.